There are three tiers in the National League. The Dodgers are alone at the top, the Marlins at the bottom. Then there are 13 teams in between.

Play the season 100 times and all 13 make the playoffs on at least a few occasions. That includes the Mets.

But there is a difference between crawling out of this swamp of ordinariness to make the playoffs and actually being the kind of club that can challenge for a title this year — and into the near future.

The Braves are the lone NL squad aside from the Dodgers to complete the weekend double-digit games above .500. And the quality depth of the Braves’ farm system positions them best among the non-Dodgers to sustain excellence beyond 2019. The Padres will have to show they can win and know how to maximize their bountiful farm.

This is an exercise the Mets should be conducting: Where do they fit into this larger picture — in their division and in their league? That should help to shape their decision making.

The Mets finished 78-84 last year and gravitated toward a new GM, Brodie Van Wagenen, who sold that the bones of a contender were within that 78-84 record. Instead, Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Famila, Jed Lowrie, Wilson Ramos and Justin Wilson later, the Mets are on pace for 74 wins.

And I am sure the Mets are on their way to believing that around Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Seth Lugo there still is a core to build something special. OK. How does that compare to the top six of the Dodgers or Braves? How about the next six? And the six after that?

Fred Wilpon with Noah SyndergaardPaul J. Bereswill

It is not even Aug. 1 and every team has used at least 35 players, 23 of 30 have deployed 40 and the Mets have needed 45. You better have a lot of answers.

Fred Wilpon long has obsessed over his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. But the fixation should be on the present-day version. These Dodgers have 10 players with at least 120 plate appearances and a better-than-league-average OPS. Their 11 pitchers who have worked the most all have an ERA better than league average.

The Mets decided to go for it in the offseason due to their rotation. They beefed up their bullpen particularly. Yet, just three of 16 Mets with even 10 innings have a better than league average ERA. How far does that leave the Mets from climbing out of the 13-team middle to the elite?

But even if the goal this year was just the playoffs, the Mets should be asking hard questions about what is wrong with their culture that they did not emerge from this middle group.

On May 23 they completed a three-game sweep of Washington. They were 24-25, the Nationals 19-31, second worst in the NL. The Nats, though, have done what the Mets could not, using rotation strength to overcome defects elsewhere to post the majors’ best winning percentage since (.688) and gain the NL’s top wild-card spot.

Way back on June 29 — you know, three and a half weeks ago — the Mets and Giants were essentially the same. The Mets were 37-47, the Giants 35-47 — only the Marlins were worse. The Giants followed with an MLB-best 15-3 run. That included winning three of four from the Mets over the weekend, all the victories coming in extra innings.

The Giants (50-50) still had only climbed to an 8.8% playoff chance by Baseball Reference calculations despite being 2 1/2 games out. Thus, they still are probably best off thinking big picture and trading Madison Bumgarner and closer Will Smith — both of whom are free agents after the season.

The Mets can focus on how tantalizingly close they were to winning all four games in San Francisco and where they would be today if they had. They are experts at this. They historically want so badly to believe that they are near being a good team that they see in these results reasons for optimism. “If only the offense were performing like a few weeks ago then all would be good.”

But bad teams find ways not to win. Sure the bullpen is better now than at any time this year, so the offense falters or Dom Smith botches a ball in left. The parts either never sync up or no part is truly quality enough to compensate when the other areas falter.